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China and "our standard of living"

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Re: China and "our standard of living"

#81

Post by ErrantX »

There is no message in this post, no "good points" (to a point). Clearly the writer has no experience of Chinese culture or has ever really been there (I know its satire - but the point is to make a point, no?).

Considering cultures in Asia/Africa (possibly even South America) from a Western perspective will always lead you to draw conclusions such as "slave labour" and "abuse".

Now, I'm not going to deny for a moment that such things do go on - but not in quite the same way and on the scale certain people wish to imagine.

Anecdote from my university course: our dept. was open 24/7 (even on Sundays if you had a special pass). I would regularly walk past the lobby at 1am and see the Chinese continget (there were many on my course) still working there. We tried to get some to come to a pub once and they didnt really get the whole relaxing/chilling out thing.

It was an interesting insight into the culture - and when I was lucky enough to travel in some of the less well known areas of Asia you see it in even more detail. Greater thabn 40hr weeks are not borne out of the manufacturers getting more out of the labour. It is borne out the culture (and, yes, they took advantage of it).

Re: China and "our standard of living"

#82

Post by papersmith »

mrshoe wrote: post #67
zimbabwe wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it zero sum? I'd make you a bet that right now, more people are living happily than ever did in the past. The bar constantly rises.

Let me expand upon my one line explanation. I apologize for being terse last time. Let's say the stock market increases at 10% per year. This growth is driven by more capital being invested in the market each year. That means everyone in the market earns 10% interest every year, right? Well, in reality, that's not the case. Some people earn 30% and some people lose 20%. In fact, if anyone earns over 10%, that means t…

This is only true if the bar is rising at a pace regardless of increase in participants.

In reality, increases in trade raises the bar faster for everyone, often so much that it offsets the drop from the increased competition.

So say both country A and country B are increasing at 10 moon units per year. Country B trades as a net exporter with country A, and takes 1 moon unit per year from country A. However, the increase in economic activity boosts 2 moon units per year for everyone. Now country A is increasing at 11 moon units per year, and country B is increasing at 13 units per year.

Re: China and "our standard of living"

#83

Post by Tangurena »

Tichy wrote: post #78
iamelgringo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern, first-world standards cannot be applied to the third world... That's part of the problem, though, isn't it? The tremendous migration of manufacturing jobs to third world countries has been in large part because they are not limited to a 40 hour work week and first world safety standards. Of course it's cheaper to manufacture in China, their regulations are a lot more lax than ours, although that may be changi…

It certainly is not all clear cut to decide, but I tend to think that competition is the only way to solve these things. If the economy where stronger in 3rd world countries, there would be more competition for workers. Therefore the companies hiring would have to offer better conditions to keep the workers. I guess that is assuming an open market, too. It does not quite apply to dictatorships and slavery. Unless you…

> Also neighboring countries would be willing to accept refugees if they had a high demand for labor.

Japan, being as nationalistic and xenophobic as they are, chose to invent and develop robots rather than allow as many foreigners into their country as was "needed."

Re: China and "our standard of living"

#84

Post by Tangurena »

neilk wrote: post #51
biohacker42 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well not quite spot on. It did mention that these people were willing to do what ever to get away from the hellish alternative they were born into. But if you blinked you missed it, you missed the most important point: People are doing this voluntarily. Rumors of forced labor are greatly exaggerated. Perhaps somewhere in Burma but in China and India and other places, people do this hard work because the alternative i…

If you saw a drowning person, would you ask them to be your slave forever in exchange for throwing them a life preserver? That's a voluntary exchange too, but you're still a dick for doing it. Yes, most of these jobs are better than the alternative, namely, starvation in the countryside where there are no jobs. In the worst cases, (not all) these jobs pay so little that the workers can't accumulate capital, can't sen…

> If you saw a drowning person, would you ask them to be your slave forever in exchange for throwing them a life preserver? That's a voluntary exchange too, but you're still a dick for doing it

That's a pretty reasonable analogy for the cycle of debt that one can get stuck in with "payday loan" stores.

Re: China and "our standard of living"

#85

Post by DanielBMarkham »

iamelgringo wrote: post #76
potatolicious wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern, first-world standards cannot be applied to the third world - I am a prime example of this. I owe my life to child labor and sweatshop labor, allow me to explain. My family is originally from Taiwan, and both of my folks grew up when Taiwan was still an inconsequential tropical island consisted mostly of fishing villages and a hodgepodge government-in-exile. Both of them are beneficiaries of the "abusive" prac…

Modern, first-world standards cannot be applied to the third world... That's part of the problem, though, isn't it? The tremendous migration of manufacturing jobs to third world countries has been in large part because they are not limited to a 40 hour work week and first world safety standards. Of course it's cheaper to manufacture in China, their regulations are a lot more lax than ours, although that may be changi…

starving children, vs children working 16 hours a day in a tomato field? That's not a good choice to have to make.

I'd be careful where you draw the line in your judgment.

For instance, the next generation of people will start with a 6th grade education and a minimum standard of living. Their challenge is to move the goalposts further.

That's just how the rest of the world did it, in fact, starting off with child and virtual slave factory labor and slowly moving to better and better conditions. If you've got some kind of shortcut to make it happen inside of one generation, I'd love to hear it.

Re: China and "our standard of living"

#86

Post by Tangurena »

jfoutz wrote: post #32
jdbeast00 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that products like the iphone are crap? Sure, you can buy the cheapest thing possible from walmart and save money, and sure, it'll break faster than a a higher-quality product. Its called choice. Even the high quality stuff coming out of china, like an iphone, is made much more inexpensively than we could make them in the states.

It's worse than that. The cheapest thing possible from walmart is still better than average, and probably better than the best from 20 years ago. Plastic drinking cups now were anodized aluminum. 10 times the price, and make you crazy. Find a (new) t-shirt from 1989 and wash it 50 times. how much did that color change? how many holes are in it? Bet that walmart shirt is holding up fairly well. I'm not a walmart fan,…

I find the opposite. Button up Shirts of mine that are 15-20 years old are still wearable, while shirts that are 5 years old end up frayed and torn.

Re: China and "our standard of living"

#87

Post by trominos »

mrshoe wrote: post #67
zimbabwe wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it zero sum? I'd make you a bet that right now, more people are living happily than ever did in the past. The bar constantly rises.

Let me expand upon my one line explanation. I apologize for being terse last time. Let's say the stock market increases at 10% per year. This growth is driven by more capital being invested in the market each year. That means everyone in the market earns 10% interest every year, right? Well, in reality, that's not the case. Some people earn 30% and some people lose 20%. In fact, if anyone earns over 10%, that means t…

> "In fact, if anyone earns over 10%, that means that someone else must be earning less than 10%. So, maybe it's a 10-sum game, but most people still use the term "zero-sum game" to describe the situation."

You fixed the rate of increase. Jesus. Obviously it'll look zero-sum under those circumstances. The point is, the more efficiently the stock market's played, the faster it grows overall (in theory). It's not zero-sum.

Re: China and "our standard of living"

#88

Post by biohacker42 »

iamelgringo wrote: post #76
potatolicious wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern, first-world standards cannot be applied to the third world - I am a prime example of this. I owe my life to child labor and sweatshop labor, allow me to explain. My family is originally from Taiwan, and both of my folks grew up when Taiwan was still an inconsequential tropical island consisted mostly of fishing villages and a hodgepodge government-in-exile. Both of them are beneficiaries of the "abusive" prac…

Modern, first-world standards cannot be applied to the third world... That's part of the problem, though, isn't it? The tremendous migration of manufacturing jobs to third world countries has been in large part because they are not limited to a 40 hour work week and first world safety standards. Of course it's cheaper to manufacture in China, their regulations are a lot more lax than ours, although that may be changi…

Starving children, vs children working 16 hours a day in a tomato field? That's not a good choice to have to make.

I'm pretty sure it IS an easy choice. B is clearly the correct answer. Over time it will get better but even if it DOESN'T, even if it onlways comes down to: A) Starve or B) 16hrs in a farm field. B is the easy right answer.

Now option C is something that's going to take a lot more then simply buying more expensive tomatoes.

Re: China and "our standard of living"

#89

Post by Tichy »

Tangurena wrote: post #83
Tichy wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It certainly is not all clear cut to decide, but I tend to think that competition is the only way to solve these things. If the economy where stronger in 3rd world countries, there would be more competition for workers. Therefore the companies hiring would have to offer better conditions to keep the workers. I guess that is assuming an open market, too. It does not quite apply to dictatorships and slavery. Unless you…

> Also neighboring countries would be willing to accept refugees if they had a high demand for labor. Japan, being as nationalistic and xenophobic as they are, chose to invent and develop robots rather than allow as many foreigners into their country as was "needed."

OK - exceptions confirm the rule, I guess ;-)

Re: China and "our standard of living"

#90

Post by iamelgringo »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #85
iamelgringo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern, first-world standards cannot be applied to the third world... That's part of the problem, though, isn't it? The tremendous migration of manufacturing jobs to third world countries has been in large part because they are not limited to a 40 hour work week and first world safety standards. Of course it's cheaper to manufacture in China, their regulations are a lot more lax than ours, although that may be changi…

starving children, vs children working 16 hours a day in a tomato field? That's not a good choice to have to make. I'd be careful where you draw the line in your judgment. For instance, the next generation of people will start with a 6th grade education and a minimum standard of living. Their challenge is to move the goalposts further. That's just how the rest of the world did it, in fact, starting off with child and…

Are you trying to say that child labor is a good thing?

The point I was trying to make, albeit not too successfully was that it's a difficult situation, and there aren't a whole lot of great options for people in those situations.

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